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Andreas Gursky: Small is Beautiful

The Düsseldorf photographer Andreas Gursky has been making photographs since 1980. A Deutschland counterpoint to Vancouver’s Jeff Wall, he was among a generation of German photographers who helped put his medium at the centre of the contemporary art scene in the 1990s. This innovative exhibition, co-organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Kunstmuseen Krefeld and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, charts the various stages of Gursky’s career, beginning with his student days in the class of Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. Including 130 works, “Andreas Gursky: Werke/Works 80–08” offers a surprising number of small-format photographs to document the trajectory of his practice. Since Gursky is best known for monumental, state-of-the art images that have a near-sculptural presence in their scale, the show represents a classical about-face. It offers a concise panorama of a practice that develops photo by photo. (750 Hornby St, Vancouver BC)